With an undergraduate degree in political science and time spent as a Peace Corps and AmeriCorps volunteer, Lain McGrath hardly envisioned a career in software engineering. Yet after onboarding at HR SaaS provider Gusto in a customer experience (CX) role, exposure to coding sparked McGrath’s interest in shifting professional tracks. The problem: She had no formal training and experience in computer science.
What might be a hurdle for many did not stop McGrath or her employers at Gusto. With the backing of key advocates, McGrath made a case for learning software engineering not just to enhance her individual job potential, but to advance a career at Gusto. Her pitch laid the groundwork for a pilot program in which Gusto covered the cost of a seven-month, full-time bootcamp while continuing to pay McGrath a salary and maintain her benefits and vesting.
Now a benefits engineer as part of Gusto’s Engineering Product Design and Data department, McGrath puts time in mentoring other women interested in making similar career changes. “I didn’t just want to be a software engineer — I wanted to be a software engineer at Gusto,” McGrath explains. “I had seen others leave to learn software engineering and not come back, which is why we advocated for this program.”
As companies scramble to find qualified IT talent, they are struggling to achieve greater female representation in their technology ranks, particularly in key areas such as software engineering and cybersecurity. The 2022 State of the CIO research confirmed talent acquisition and retention strategies are a key issue for CIOs, cited by 38% of respondents, with cybersecurity skills, data science/analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in top demand. Yet in the cybersecurity field, women only account for about one quarter (24%) of the overall workforce, albeit, up from 11% in 2017, according to the ISC2 Women in Cybersecurity report. A 2020 World Economic Forum report found that women make up a similar percentage (26%) of data and AI positions in the workforce.
Despite the uptick in numbers, there remains cause for concern. The average woman professional exits the cybersecurity industry at age 35, notes Women in Cyber Security (WiCyS), a nonprofit devoted to advancing women in the field. This is a potentially alarming statistic given a projected worldwide staffing shortage of nearly 3 million cybersecurity professionals, a half million in the United States alone. With all the focus on recruiting more women to technology-related roles, there needs to be comparable emphasis on creative retention strategies to move the needle in any substantive way.
Continue reading: https://www.cio.com/article/403242/it-leaders-uplift-women-to-fill-tech-talent-gaps.html
What might be a hurdle for many did not stop McGrath or her employers at Gusto. With the backing of key advocates, McGrath made a case for learning software engineering not just to enhance her individual job potential, but to advance a career at Gusto. Her pitch laid the groundwork for a pilot program in which Gusto covered the cost of a seven-month, full-time bootcamp while continuing to pay McGrath a salary and maintain her benefits and vesting.
Now a benefits engineer as part of Gusto’s Engineering Product Design and Data department, McGrath puts time in mentoring other women interested in making similar career changes. “I didn’t just want to be a software engineer — I wanted to be a software engineer at Gusto,” McGrath explains. “I had seen others leave to learn software engineering and not come back, which is why we advocated for this program.”
As companies scramble to find qualified IT talent, they are struggling to achieve greater female representation in their technology ranks, particularly in key areas such as software engineering and cybersecurity. The 2022 State of the CIO research confirmed talent acquisition and retention strategies are a key issue for CIOs, cited by 38% of respondents, with cybersecurity skills, data science/analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in top demand. Yet in the cybersecurity field, women only account for about one quarter (24%) of the overall workforce, albeit, up from 11% in 2017, according to the ISC2 Women in Cybersecurity report. A 2020 World Economic Forum report found that women make up a similar percentage (26%) of data and AI positions in the workforce.
Despite the uptick in numbers, there remains cause for concern. The average woman professional exits the cybersecurity industry at age 35, notes Women in Cyber Security (WiCyS), a nonprofit devoted to advancing women in the field. This is a potentially alarming statistic given a projected worldwide staffing shortage of nearly 3 million cybersecurity professionals, a half million in the United States alone. With all the focus on recruiting more women to technology-related roles, there needs to be comparable emphasis on creative retention strategies to move the needle in any substantive way.
Continue reading: https://www.cio.com/article/403242/it-leaders-uplift-women-to-fill-tech-talent-gaps.html
